One of the many challenges that face new parents is getting sufficient sleep and in particular, improving the parents' quality of sleep by helping the baby sleep through the night by developing healthy sleep habits. Newborns have fragmented sleep patterns in part base on their neurological development at this early age and therefore, newborns do not sleep for long periods of time. Infants also require two or three nighttime feedings since their tiny stomachs cannot hold enough food to keep them full for long periods.
There are a vast number of different techniques that have been publicized for training the baby to fall to sleep fast and at an early age. One of the most popular techniques is the Ferber method (named for its creator, Richard Ferber, M.D. This method is based on the notion that babies make associations with falling asleep, whether at bedtime or after waking in the middle of the night. Thus, if a parent routinely rocks the baby to sleep or allows the baby to fall asleep while having a bottle, the baby will come to rely on these things in order to go to sleep and will want them repeated when the baby awakes in the middle of the night. The baby thus has to be taught to learn to fall asleep by himself/herself in the crib. The Ferber method is designed to provide such instruction.
The Ferber method works in the following manner. The baby is placed in his/her baby in the crib, say good night, and leave the room. If the baby starts to cry, let the baby cry for a first period of time, say 5 minutes. Then go into the room, comfort the baby briefly without picking the baby up and then leave. If the baby cries, wait a second longer period of time, say 10 minutes before going in, then a third period of time (say 15 minutes), until the baby falls asleep. The point of going into the baby's room is reassure the baby that the parent still exists and to reassure the parent than the baby is okay. This ritual is then repeated with the same timed intervals used at the baby's bedtime each time the baby wakes up during the night.
Each subsequent night, an additional 5 minutes is added to the first interval. For example, the second night, start by waiting 10 minutes before going in and then on the third night wait for 15 minutes, etc. Many parents find that if the Ferber method is strictly adhered to that over the course of three to seven days, the baby learns to associate being in the crib with falling asleep. Also of importance is that the baby also learns that crying will not get his or her parents to pick him or her up.
There are a number of drawbacks that make this method difficult for parents and in particular, the Ferber method is not for the fainthearted since the parent has to be able to hear the baby's crying for an extended period of time.
Given the popularity of the Ferber method, it would therefore be desirable to provide an accessory that can be used with the Ferber method and increases the likelihood that the parent will adhere to the Ferber method until success is achieved.